


The fragility of souls

by RahDamon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Minor Angst, Miscommunication, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 01:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13066665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RahDamon/pseuds/RahDamon
Summary: Lance had always wanted to meet his soulmate. He just hadn’t expected it to be like this. Or, every species in the known universe possessing at least moderate sentience has the concept of soulmates. However, the realization and discovery of mentioned soulmates varies.





	The fragility of souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tell_tale_heart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tell_tale_heart/gifts).



“Hey Coran, do Alteans have soulmates?”

Lance had been wondering that for a while actually. Then again, he’d always been interested in soulmates, especially his own. When he was small, he used to dream about how he would meet them. Back then, though, he was still thinking he’d meet a girl, so he had been thinking of a ‘her’.

He’d come up with scenario after scenario.

Maybe he’d be in a hurry and crash against her while running with full speed. Lance, gallant and suave, of course, would catch her before she crashed to the ground. Both of their breaths would freeze for a second and an eternity before both of their hearts would rocket around as they watched colour bleed on their skins where they had touched. He’d forget what he had to do and invite his sweet girl out for hot chocolate. They’d talk and marvel at their soultattoos and guess what they meant.

Or he’d be in a meeting and shake hands with his soulmate. They’d both startle and flinch as colour dyed their palms. Breathless they would stare into each other’s eyes and beg to be excused from the meeting to get to know each other better.

Or he’d clap his engineer on their bare shoulder after a successful flight and watch paint appear. And Lance’s heart would be full, so full, cause that meant he and his soulmate worked well together, fitted each other so well they could complete each other’s thoughts, could work as one under pressure.

(He might have hoped for a while that Hunk was his soulmate. It had started his habit of touching Hunk, leaning on him and, generally, not caring about something like personal space. But then Hunk had dragged Lance by the wrist to the Garrison kitchen one time, babbling something about permission to try and improve the Garrison grub. Lance’s wrist hadn’t changed and neither had Hunk’s palm.)

Or, perhaps, out there in space he’d find an alien and become the first human to have an alien as soulmate. Which didn’t seem as far-stretched now as it had had before he was thrown into an ancient, intergalactic war.

Of course, Lance had already touched Allura, had touched her more than once, before it occured to him that maybe Alteans didn’t have soulmates - wouldn’t it still affect him, though? - or that they have another way of finding them. To ask that question to Allura, though, would be more than embarrassing and it wasn’t like Lance could read Altean script.

Coran was his only hope. It was worth helping him with cleaning the pods or the halls or anything else if Lance could get an answer to his question.

“Soulmates?” Coran’s eyebrows furrowed as his moustache twitched. “I am sorry, my boy. I am not sure what you mean by that.”

“Uhm,” Lance floundered for a moment. If Coran hadn’t heard of the concept, it wouldn’t exist for Alteans, right? Then again, maybe whatever was translating their respective languages was messing up. Or they called them differently.

“Uhm, a soulmate is a person who completes you? They love you and only you, full package love most of the time, and don’t care ‘bout your flaws …” Lance trailed off, not knowing how to explain further. It was personal, or at least seemed very personal, to describe a soulmate. There were a thousand different ways but Lance just wanted someone he could be whole with.

Thankfully, Coran’s eyes lightened up and he grinned. “Ahh, Strokehearts! Why didn’t you say that before?”

“… Strokehearts?”

“Oh, forgive me, of course you wouldn’t know. Keep cleaning while I tell you some things.”

Lance scoffed but he did, taking a rag in his hand and beginning to polish the cyro-pods.

“Yes, Alteans have, as you called them, soulmates. Every species more mature and developed than Flubbubs has them.”

What the cheese were Flubbubs? Lance didn’t ask, though, as Coran seemed to gain more and more enthusiasm for the topic, practically vibrating at his chosen pod.

“In our chronicles and diplomatic interactions, we Alteans have discovered this. Also, we found out that no species has the same name for the concept or the same way of finding them.”

“SERIOUSLY?!” Meaning Lance still had a chance, right? A devastating glare with quivering moustache made Lance mime closing a zip. Although Coran probably didn’t understand the gesture, he kept talking and scrubbing.

“We call our … soulmates Strokehearts because we find them that way. The first words our Strokehearts tell us are inscribed on our wrist, or wrists depending if you have one or two.”

“Isn’t that difficult if you have really common words like a greeting?”

Coran chuckled, something like nostalgia swimming in his voice. “Yes, it could be. Our language had some nifty tricks to personalize a greeting by using certain inflections but that only goes so far.” Rubbing his right wrist, Coran laughed. “We eventually started greeting new persons with unique expressions to make it easier to find our Strokeheart.”

“Still don’t get the Strokeheart, thing.”

“Ah, words on the wrist. You write with strokes and your Strokeheart would imprint themselves in your heart by stroking these first words into your skin. Strokeheart.”

Licking his lips Lance asked, his voice shaking. “Have you or Allura already met your Strokeheart?”

A minute passed with silence and Lance looked up from the pod to see Coran staring at him. Coran shook his head and for one moment Lance hoped.

“I have already loved and lost, my boy. And the Princess has recently met one of her two Strokehearts” - Lance’s heart skipped a beat, almost tap-dancing -”but her Strokeheart refused to believe her. Or rather, he says, that he already has one.”

Wait, what? The “Who?” slipped out before he could think about it.

“Well, “ Coran hummed. “I am quite unsure if I should tell you. It is rather personal but-”

Lance didn’t notice the pod activating around him until it was too late.

Yelping he tried to get Coran’s attention but the man kept talking, back turned towards Lance, not that Lance could actually hear it as the pod blocked out any sound. Coran didn’t notice the ice freezing over the pod or the pod sinking into the floor with Lance in it.

Within the pod, Lance felt fear freezing his bones from inside out, much faster than pod tried to freeze him. Allura and Coran had spent 10,000 years, hidden away from the world, in such a pod. Would Lance fall asleep and wake up decades later? Or would he freeze and die, his human body not being able to deal with the strain of being kept alive for that long? Would he be left alone and lonely, his soulmate forced to wander wherever they were without any idea what happened to Lance -

The pod rose and before long Lance stared into Coran’s stress-wrinkled face. Lance shivered, fear still in his bones, as Coran told him to go rest. Obeying he left the med-bay.

Which turned out to be one of the worst decisions he could have made.

Still feeling cold, Lance drew his jacket tighter around himself. He rubbed his arms hoping to will away the cold but it intensified as the lights in the corridor flickered.

“Oh, please, no,” was the only thing he could say within the darkness of the corridor. Lance wasn’t ashamed to admit he whimpered when the figure of a dead man flickered at the other end of the corridor.

He also wasn’t ashamed to turn around and run, run until his lungs burned. Throwing a glance behind him and finding absolutely nothing, let relief course through his body. Lance was about to sigh in relief when out of nowhere he heard Coran screech for help.

His body acted on instinct, of course, and he ran. He ran until he got locked into the airlock, a Coran-less airlock despite the voice that had echoed through the corridors.

But panic only started to run its course through his veins when the countdown started. For a few minutes, all Lance could think about was that he was going to die, and not even glorious and in battle with a bang. No, he would die getting ejected by the obviously haunted castle he had called home for several weeks.

Keith being slammed against the airlock door was a godsent miracle although they wasted a few precious seconds by bantering - it wasn’t like Lance had locked himself in the airlock with the intent to say bye bye to oxygen and life. Then again, seeing a training robot trying to kill Keith wasn’t a walk in the park either, especially when the robot refused to let Keith save Lance.

Once again, thank god for Keith and his reflexes. Or rather damn him, because when Lance had said ‘Save me’ he hadn’t meant ‘open the airlock while telling me to hold on; do you know how hard that is, you jerk?’

Exactly what Keith did, though. Open the airlock and tell Lance to hold tight.

However, Lance couldn’t fight against gravity for long; or not gravity but space. He couldn’t fight space forever and his fingers slipped and he would die, die, still die -

Fingers wrapped tightly around his left wrist, skin on skin, pale against dark. Lance hissed through his teeth as his wrist burned and he was dragged out of the airlock. He winced as the burning remained, seeping into his bones and chasing away the lingering cold.

The airlock door clicked shut and Lance trembled against Keith, Keith’s fingers still against Lance’s wrist. That - he had almost died! He had to be in shock but gasping, at least he wasn’t the only one gasping.

Keith was, too. As Lance stared up and into Keith’s eyes he noticed that they were blown wide, the strange violet-grey completely swallowed by black. He was shaking just as much as Lance, chest falling and rising quickly.

“What,” Keith choked out, “what were you doing in there?”

“Not waiting to be thrown out of the ship, certainly!”

“Oh really? That’s exactly what it looked like!”

“The castle was trying to kill me, ok?”

“You?! Didn’t you see the gladiator trying to kill me?!”

They both stopped. Their eyes widened as they shared an epiphany over eye contact and they shot up heading for the bridge.

Later, much later, after they had managed to keep Allura from steering them into a fiery death, after they had more or less exorcised the castle, Lance wanted to sleep. Sleep and never wake up.

Because while the rest of the team and Coran were trying to talk sense into Allura Lance had looked down on his burning wrist, had sucked in a harsh breath and had thrown a glance at Keith’s blemish-less fingers and wrist.

Because his wrist was painted and the only one who had touched him had no marks on his skin.

Because Lance wasn’t his soulmate’s soulmate.

He had kept it together while they were comforting Allura. He had kept it together until he could walk away. He had kept it together until he was just outside his room. But now Lance couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

Sliding down the wall next to his door, Lance pulled off the sleeve of his jacket and looked at his wrist with bated breath. The tattoo was glowing, something he hadn’t seen any other soultattoo ever do. With trembling fingers he followed the lines of the blue bird - a phoenix? - as it wrapped itself around the familiar red dagger with a black stone in the middle. Whenever his fingers stroke over the tattoo the glow would intensify, something else he had never seen a soultattoo do.

Of course, Keith’s mark would be unique.

Lance smiled. That thought wasn’t bitter at all, was it? It wasn’t the fact that Keith was his soulmate - yeah, he’d admitted his crush on Keith to himself long ago but had never even dared to hope - that let bitterness seep through the cracks of his mind. It was the fact that his soulmate bond was apparently one-sided. Not even platonic or familiar - platonic soultattoos only had lines without color while familiar ones had color without lines - but one-sided.

Fucking one-sided.

His luck, that was just Lance’s luck, wasn’t it?

He took a deep breath.

Okay. So that was fine, he could deal with it. He’d just hide his soultattoo as he didn’t want to answer any questions. It’d be easy. He wouldn’t pressure Keith to love him or try to date him just because Keith was Lance’s soulmate but not the other way around. There were plenty of couples on Earth that weren’t soulmates (even though they were seen as temporary relationships but who cared?).

Lance could be happy. Nothing had to change. He convinced himself of this, repeating these words over and over again in his mind, as he stood up with brittle legs and a blue bird’s heart.

The next morning - well, what constituted as morning in the castle, anyway - Lance went directly to Coran on the bridge. Beside Coran the bridge was empty and would have been silent if not for the soft whirring of the machines and Coran’s off-key singing. The singing was accompanied by a wiggly dance that made Lance laugh despite his current mood.

“My boy! What a surprise to see you awake at this time of quintant. Usually, I must say, you are the last one to arrive.” With every word Coran’s moustache twitched.

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, need help. Do we have bandages that are waterproof and acid-proof and … well, basically everything-proof?”

Coran tilted his head and frowned, tapping a finger against his chin. “Let me think … we didn’t use too many bandages, you understand, not by my time but …” Snapping his fingers, Coran’s frown turned into a grin. “There are Nunskrill bandages. They were used to hide your words by adhering to your skin and staying there permanently. Not used that often, mind you, but nobles and royalty simply loved them.”

“So…since Allura is the Princess, did she use them, too?”

“She still does, my boy! Or have you ever seen words on her wrist?”

Opening his mouth to answer, Lance stocked. Come to think of it, he had never seen any writing on her wrists, not even the day before when she had stood before them in her pyjamas and without armour.

“Could I have some?”

“But why would you need them?”

“Please, Coran …” Lance didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to speak the words out loud. Not saying it out loud made the situation feel less real.

“Very well. You have to change them every other cycle or they are liable to fall off.”

Lance nodded as Coran slipped away to fish a package out of a console and handed it to him.

“Thank you, Coran,” was the last thing Lance said before hurrying back to his room.

On his bed he ripped open the package to find light blue bandages, thin stripes with Altean symbols inscribed on them. Lance hesitated for a second staring at his phoenix and dagger before closing his eyes. He wrapped the bandages tightly around his wrist taking care to cover all of the tattoo.

The bandages shivered, shining like starbursts for the fraction of a second before they bled seamlessly into his skin. Lance could feel the material against his skin but visually there was nothing. Good.

Now he just had to act the same as before.

All in all, Lance thought he managed to act normal. Sometimes he had been terrified someone would find out about his soultattoo - Hunk had wrapped his arms around him and looked at Lance before offering an ear shortly after Lance had covered his tattoo, the pool incident, splashing around a fountain with Pidge.

But in the end no one but Coran had found out. (Coran walked in on Lance when he had been changing the bandages. What had followed, had been a long discussion with plenty of begging thrown in from Lance’s side.)

However, he couldn’t hide his increasing fondness for Keith. He tried, by God he tried, but their teamwork continued to improve. Which wasn’t a bad thing, especially for Voltron, but Lance knew it was bad for his heart. The way they fitted together, anticipated each other’s moves and had each other’s back fostered hope in Lance’s heart.

And hope was deadly. Just as deadly as the worry gnawing at his bones as he was forced to watch the Red Lion attack the Blade of Marmora base without knowing why or being able to do something.

One more minute of no news and, screw Coran and the Princess, Lance would have taken Blue and rammed against the base. It didn’t come to that as Keith’s voice echoed through the bridge announcing his, Shiro’s and the apparent Leader of the Blade’s arrival to the castle, but Lance had been prepared to do it.

They all hurried down to Red’s hangar. When Lance finally saw the three figures stepping out of the lion, he would have liked to do something he had never done before.

Take out his dusty knowledge of Spanish and Cuban swear words and let them fly.

Keith looked like he had sparred with a Level 10 Gladiator on his own eight times and had his ass kicked every time. Exhaustion seeped through every line of his body, from the dropped shoulders, of which one was noticeably tenser, to his half-lidded eyes and careful steps forward. It didn’t help that Shiro’s eyes were glued to Keith, as though their leader was ready to catch Keith at any time, should he spontaneously fall unconscious.

The attacking of the Red Lion had already raised Lance suspicion but Keith’s appearance and Shiro’s behaviour sealed the deal. Something had gone down within that base. And whatever it had been, it had hurt Keith.

Lance saw Keith flinch at something Allura said only because he was watching Keith so closely. He watched as Keith’s eyes flickered between the Leader of the Blade - Lance had missed the name - and Allura when Allura’s voice froze over. He noticed when Keith’s fists balled together before Keith took a deep breath and straightened up.

“… and how can we know we can trust you? You are Galra!”

“So am I!” Keith exploded.

Allura’s head whipped towards Keith fast enough that everyone heard the crack. “What?”

Keith swallowed and winced. “Or at least, half. I’m at least Half-Galra.”

The first question or thought popping up in Lance’s head probably shouldn’t have been “How do Galra find their soulmates?” He also probably shouldn’t have blurted it out without thought judging from the stares ranging from disbelieved to angry aimed at him.

“Soulmates?” The Galra’s ears wiggled but that was the only sign of confusion.

“Ah, I believe our Blue Paladin means your Illuminators or Altean Strokehearts.”

Lance sighed and nodded. Good Coran, always coming to the rescue.

“I don’t think that is important right now, Lance.” Ow. The tundra would be like a summer paradise in comparison to Allura’s voice.

“I … also want to know that.”

“Then, Paladin, you can ask on your own time, when we are not fighting a war.”

These words looked like they hit Keith harder than an actual blow would have done. He shrivelled in on himself and Lance’s anger welled up again. However, he couldn’t lash out at Allura, especially not in front of their (tentative) new ally.

“It’s important, though, right? I can’t believe we’ve never asked before.”

“And how, Lance? It is

like we are chatting with the Galra about their Strokehearts while we defeat them. And therefore inconsequential. We aren’t Galra.”

Baring his teeth - oh my god, why did Lance do that? - he said, “Obviously you don’t need to be Galra to be the soulmate of a Galra! Just look at m- … urgh, Mullet’s parents! They were soulmates, right?”

Keith hesitated before nodding. “From the little I remember, Dad told me he and Mom were destined for each other.” He paused for a breath or two before he continued. “Dad’s tattoo was on his throat, a canopy of stars and … and the symbol of the Blade of Marmora.”

Grinning smugly Lance turned back to Allura. “See? What if a Galra is our soulmate? Or,” - and that’s why Lance really wanted to know - “maybe Keith finds his soulmate the Galra way!”

“Strokehearts are not important! Not during this war!” Allura said with a harsh tone but a desperate glint in her eyes. More interesting was Shiro’s flinch but Lance couldn’t concentrate on that, not when he had to fight Allura without fighting.

“Love is, though! Especially in war!”

“Oh, Lance, how -”

“Enough!” Shiro bellowed stepping between Lance and Allura. “Think about the impression we are making on Kolivan. Not a very good one. Besides, I doubt it takes long to tell us how Galra find their … Illuminators, was it?”

The Leader of the Blade - ahh, Kolivan - nodded. “Galra are born colourblind. When they first touch the one they are intended for, their world illuminates and fills with colours.”

“What?!”

Everyone in the hangar turned to Keith at his outburst. His eyes were wide, almost black with a slim ring of violet, his shoulders shaking just as hard as his chest, the picture of pure panic.

“Are you sure? Really sure?”

“Yes, young Blade. I am very sure about this biological reaction of our species.”

Keith swallowed, the sound obscenely loud. “Then I know who my soulmate is. But - Allura is right. We need to concentrate on defeating Zarkon, first.”

To Lance’s disgruntlement, everyone agreed. (And so he lost the opportunity to ask “Who is it?” while swallowing down his jealousy. Jealousy joined Hope in the graveyard of Lance’s feelings.)

Weeks later, after everything went down the drain, they almost lost to Zarkon, actually lost Shiro to his Lion and played Musical Chairs with almost all their Lions, Keith hunted Lance down and dragged him with a curt “We need to talk” into Red.

Once settled into Red, Lance ticked an eyebrow in the universal - or rather, human - gesture of “So?”.

“Wanna keep fidgeting or tell me why you forced me into Red?”

“I didn’t force you to do anything,” Keith said hackles raised before he froze and tried taking five calming breaths, in and out. Lance remembered having taught that to him just last week.

“Do you remember when I told you about being Galra?”

Lance scoffed. “Sure, I do. I know I come off as dumb but that wasn’t too long ago.”

“You’re not dum- you know what, let’s not get into it right now, though you’re NOT dumb. I meant about how Galra find their soulmates.”

“Yeah, remember.”

“Do you also remember back when the castle tried to kill us?”

“Keith, where are you going with this?”

A dreadful hope started to spread in Lance’s gut. A hope he tried to squish down - it would hurt more to be shattered than to have never acknowledged that hope.

“I know it is one-sided but … when I caught you that time, everything became colourful. And, so, …” Keith trailed off, eyes flickering everywhere but to Lance.

Lance breath sped up as he connected the pieces and the hope flickering in his stomach - despite all of Lance’s efforts - flared into a heat wave spreading through his whole body.

“Are … Are you saying I’m your soulmate?”

“Pretty sure. I know it’s not reciprocated. I expect nothing.”

When Keith looked down on Lance’s left wrist there was an agonized twist in his eyes, as though he was longing for something unattainable yet still so coveted. A feeling Lance understood only too well.

The hope culminated in his chest, burst into something else called love and joy and Lance couldn’t help it. He laughed and swooped down to drop a kiss on Keith’s lips before pulling back and immediately regretting. Their first kiss should have been more memorable.

He seemed to have stumped Keith anyway. “WH- why - what was that?!”

“A kiss.”

“I know WHAT it was. I want to know why. If you’re just pitying me-”

“Pff,” Lance laughed choosing to wrap his arms around Keith and pull him closer. “I don’t do pity relationships. Also watch!” Under Keith’s gaze he unwrapped his bandages, sighing as his soultattoo was set free to fresh air.

“Turns out you’re my soulmate, too!”

An inferno broke out on his wrist as Keith’s trembling fingers stroke over the tattoo and sent a myriad of emotions down Lance’s way. Love was a given. But Lust, emotional support and the feeling of coming home were unexpected.

“We’re soulmates.”

“Yes, yes, we are. We’re also idiots.”

Keith laughed, shaking in Lance’s arms before slumping down and raising Lance’s wrist to nuzzle the tattoo.

“You’re the only idiot here.”

“But I’m yours.”

Keith had a wonderfully open smile, vulnerable and sincere.

“Yeah, you are.”


End file.
